Political mythology often trumps reality

By Jon Ralston

Sunday, Sept. 14, 2008 | 2:02 a.m.

I have covered a few political myths in my time.

In 1988 U.S. Sen. Chic Hecht accused his opponent, Gov. Richard Bryan, of having a “private jet.” It was actually a state Transportation Department airplane.

In 2004 state Senate candidate Joe Heck and some third parties made it appear as if Ann O’Connell were some kind of profligate spender. O’Connell, one of the most conservative lawmakers in history, had signed on to a bill that would have raised $1.6 billion in taxes, but she did so out of protest.

And in 2006 Rep. Jon Porter portrayed his foe, Tessa Hafen, as a carpetbagger. Hafen was born in Henderson, many years before Porter moved into his district.

These were the kinds of creations Edith Hamilton would have greatly admired. But even she would have been stunned by the current mythmaking surrounding a goddess by the name of Sarah Palin. The Alaska governor, who was in Carson City on Saturday, was created, molded and immediately deified by the McCain campaign in one of the greatest spectacles in political history.

This stroke of brilliance or luck, or combination thereof, not only has changed the presidential race dynamic, but it has fundamentally shown what can be done in the New Media Age. If Homer and Virgil had access to 30-second ads or blogs, think what more they could have accomplished.

Palin is like some stupendous sum of all Democratic fears and all Republican hopes, a woman with the power to hypnotize one side and terrify the other. Has she a heel like Achilles, is her weakness a stone’s throw away like Goliath’s, or is she invincible?

She already has accomplished something that, even in the political world, where the great can seem small and the small great, is close to a miracle. In just a fortnight she has taken the conceit of an omnipotent Barack Obama, standing in the shadow of those columns a mile high (not quite Olympus but ...), and reduced the Democratic nominee to a more diminutive figure than the previously unknown, not even half-term governor of a state most people don’t know much about.

How does this happen? That is, how does a woman who supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she couldn’t anymore but still claims to have killed it, a woman who apparently used Fahrenheit 451 as one of her bibles, and a woman who is accused of cronyism and abusing travel budgets get elevated to deity status without having to make any interim stops?

Palin’s interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson is instructive if you take the time to watch it — her regurgitation of facile talking points, her cluelessness about the Bush Doctrine, her bellicose bleatings about Russia. If anyone — Republican, Democrat, independent, sentient human being — still feels comfortable with her stepping into the presidency after that, he lives in the fantasy world that has been brilliantly erected around her, like a cocoon that seals in the myth and doesn’t allow truth to escape.

The chutzpah here is astonishing. Oh, I have seen brazenness before, too — it is endemic to campaigns, especially this time of year. But to keep bragging about the Nowhere Bridge, simply because it is getting the ticket somewhere, and to try to rally women by falsely accusing Obama of calling Palin a “pig” is beyond belief. Next I’ll see Pegasus flying around or a Minotaur at the zoo.

As a political observer and ever-learning student of the game, I am not quite sure whether to view this with admiration or horror. But the irony here is so rich: Hillary Clinton ran against Obama on the premise that he was a myth created by the media, which has sent Republicans into orbit as they have argued the Obama legend is based on wisps. So now the Democrats are writhing and ranting because the McCain campaign has created a myth of its own.

In John Ford’s seminal Western, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” the truth about the eponymous shooter finally is revealed, exploding a myth that elevated a good man to power. But a newspaper editor refuses to publish it, declaring, “This is the West, Sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

And why not? It’s always a better story.

And when it comes to The Legend of Sarah Palin, the media may be printing the truth about her less-than-mythic proportions. But as Bryan almost found out and O’Connell and Hafen did — and considering the general antipathy toward the media and the McCain campaign’s skill in myth-telling — people may just prefer to vote for the legend.